paskino.com Here to make the world a little better - maybe

New submitter Hector's House writes "'Nothing is certain. Nothing is secure,' reflects one of the characters in Paolo Bacigalupi's novel The Windup Girl. In 23rd century Bangkok, life for many hangs by a thread. Oil has run out; rising seas threatens to engulf the city; genetically engineered diseases hover on Thailand's borders; and the threat of violence smolders as government ministries vie for power. Environmental destruction, climate change and novel plagues have wiped out many of the crop species that humanity depends on: the profits to be made from creating — or stealing — new species are potentially enormous. After a century of collapse and contraction, Western business sees hope for a new wave of globalization; Thailand's fiercely guarded seed banks may provide just the springboard needed." Keep reading for the rest of Aidan's review.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

judgecorp writes "A research team at Manchester has taken a big step toward building transistors with graphene. So far graphene's marvelous conductivity has actually proved a drawback, but the team has sandwiched a layer of molybdenum disulfide between layers of graphene to provide a high on/off ratio. Also, the British Government is finding £50 million to fund Manchester as a center for graphene study and development, led by two professors there, Sir Kostya Novoselov and Sir Andre Geim, who shared the 2010 Nobel prize for Physics for their work on graphene."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

astroengine writes "It's a strange irony that to afford the expense of space exploration, international collaboration is often sought after — spreading the cost across several international partners means the biggest space missions may be accomplished. And yet in times of austerity, national budgets balk at the prospect of investing in international projects like ExoMars. Sadly, that's exactly what could be facing the ambitious ESA-led Mars rover/satellite mission if NASA's Science Mission Directorate budget is slashed in the next financial year. NASA may pull out of the project, leaving ExoMars with no rockets or a means to actually land on Mars. Could Russia help out? Possibly, but it will still lead to ESA taking on more cost than it has budgeted for."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

jfruh writes "In an email exchange with privacy blogger Dan Tynan, Columbia law professor Eben Moglen referred to Facebook as a 'man in the middle attack' — that is, a service that intercepts communication between two parties and uses it for its own nefarious purposes. He said, 'The point is that by sharing with our actual friends through a web intermediary who can store and mine everything, we harm people by destroying their privacy for them. It's not the sharing that's bad, it's the technological design of giving it all to someone in the middle. That is at once outstandingly stupid and overwhelmingly dangerous.' Tynan is a critic of Facebook, but he thinks Moglen is overstating the case."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

New submitter Kiyyik writes "After weeks of wrangling over shared space on utility poles, Google and the KC Board of Public Utilities have gotten their act together and Google is starting to wire Kansas City, Kansas today. They will be paying attachment fees and hanging the fiber optic lines in the space on the poles reserved for telecommunications. The Kansas City, Missouri side is still on track to begin a few months behind the Kansas side."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

tykev writes "The Czech government suspended the ratification process of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, ACTA, said Prime Minister Petr Necas today. The government wants to further analyze the issue. There were a number of public demonstrations against ACTA in several Czech towns, and some Czech Euro MP's oppose ACTA as being 'completely wide of the mark'. Earlier, Poland announced its intention to suspend the ratification process as well. In the meantime, the website of the ruling Czech Civic Democratic Party was attacked and defaced by Anonymous who also publicly released personal data of the party's members."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Zothecula writes "Research scientist Andreas Mershin has a dream to bring inexpensive solar power to the masses, especially those in developing countries. After years of research, he and his team at MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms, along with University of Tennessee biochemist Barry Bruce, have worked out a process that extracts functional photosynthetic molecules from common yard and agricultural waste. If all goes well, in a few years it should be possible to gather up a pile of grass clippings, mix it with a blend of cheap chemicals, paint it on your roof and begin producing electricity. Talk about redefining green power plants!"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

itwbennett writes "A Court in Delhi, India has ordered Google to remove content that 'is said to mock gods worshipped in India,' according to an IDG News Service report. Mufti Ajiaz Arshad Qasmi, a private citizen, 'had filed a civil suit against Google and other Internet companies including Facebook, objecting to certain content on their websites.' While Google agreed to remove the content, citing a 'long-standing policy of responding to court orders,' other Internet companies named in the suit are likely to appeal."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

First time accepted submitter tonique writes "Perl Data Language (PDL) 2.4.10 has been released. Highlights of the new release are automatic multi-thread support, support for data structures larger than 2 GB and POSIX threads support. Also available is the first draft of the new PDL book. PDL is especially suitable for scientists. For those not in the know, 'PDL gives standard Perl the ability to compactly store and speedily manipulate the large N-dimensional data arrays which are the bread and butter of scientific computing.' Commercial languages used for the same purpose include MATLAB and IDL."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

suraj.sun writes in with a story about the spread of full body scanners. It reads in part:"Passengers at airports across Australia will be forced to undergo full-body scans or be banned from flying under new laws to be introduced into Federal Parliament this week. In a radical $28 million security overhaul, the scanners will be installed at all international airports from July and follows trials at Sydney and Melbourne in August and September last year. The Government is touting the technology as the most advanced available, with the equipment able to detect metallic and non-metallic items beneath clothing. It's also keen to allay concerns raised on travel online forums that passengers would appear nude on security screens as they had when similar scanners were introduced at US airports. The technology will show passengers on a screen as stick figures of neither sex."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

First time accepted submitter Cyberax writes "After 30 years of drilling and weeks of media attention the Antarctic underground lake Vostok has been reached by Russian scientists (translated article). Deep drilling in the vicinity of Vostok Station in Antarctica began in the 1970s, when the existence of the reservoir was not yet known. Scientists are beginning paleoclimatic studies and further exploration of the lake will continue in 2013-2014."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

mikejuk writes "A petition signed by over 21,000 people asked the UK Government to grant a pardon to Alan Turing. That request has now been declined. A statement in the House of Lords explained the reasoning: 'A posthumous pardon was not considered appropriate as Alan Turing was properly convicted of what at the time was a criminal offence. He would have known that his offence was against the law and that he would be prosecuted. It is tragic that Alan Turing was convicted of an offence which now seems both cruel and absurd-particularly poignant given his outstanding contribution to the war effort. However, the law at the time required a prosecution and, as such, long-standing policy has been to accept that such convictions took place and, rather than trying to alter the historical context and to put right what cannot be put right, ensure instead that we never again return to those times.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

angry tapir writes "Symantec researchers have identified a new premium-rate SMS Android Trojan that modifies its code every time it gets downloaded in order to bypass antivirus detection. This technique is known as server-side polymorphism and has already existed in the world of desktop malware for many years, but mobile malware creators have only now begun to adopt it."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

MojoKid writes "There's a new tablet in town called the Spark. The Linux-driven tablet, based on the Zenithink C71 and KDE was unveiled by developer Aaron Seigo recently. The tablet will be available for pre-order this week and will start shipping worldwide in May. In terms of specifications, the 7-inch (800x480) multi-touch slate will run a 1GHz AMLogic ARM processor and Mali-400 GPU, sport 512MB of RAM, 4GB of internal storage (with a microSD slot for expandability), 802/11b/g WiFi, a pair of USB ports, a front-facing 1.3MP webcam, and an audio jack. The UI of choice is Plasma Active and there will apparently be a content store where developers can peddle their wares and users can snag software."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

New submitter gmrobbins writes "The Seattle Times profiles avionics engineer Don Bateman, whose Honeywell lab in Redmond, Washington has for decades pioneered ground proximity warning systems. Bateman's innovations have nearly eliminated controlled flight into terrain by commercial aircraft, the most common cause of fatal airplane accidents."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

itwbennett writes "Just a few hours after a fake CNN news report appeared on Facebook Friday, more than 60,000 users had gone to the spoofed, malware bearing page according to Sophos Senior Security Advisor Chester Wisniewski. Facebook didn't respond to IDG News Service's request for information on 'how widespread the problem was or whether its own security had been breached, but Wisniewski said that there are a number of ways that status updates could appear without users' knowledge.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

First time accepted submitter AWESOM-O 4k writes "It seems like the popular file sharing site BTJunkie.org is gone. On btjunkie.org you are greeted with the following: '2005 — 2012 This is the end of the line my friends. The decision does not come easy, but we've decided to voluntarily shut down. We've been fighting for years for your right to communicate, but it's time to move on. It's been an experience of a lifetime, we wish you all the best! '"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader writes "Checking a Twitter, Facebook or email account for updates may be more tempting than alcohol and cigarettes, according to researchers who tried to measure how well people regulate their daily desires. Researchers also found that while sleep and sex may be stronger urges than certain drug addictions, people are more likely to give in to their addiction to use social or other types of media."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Hugh Pickens writes "Space.com reports that an online petition directed at the USPS and its Citizen Stamp Advisory Committee (CSAC) hopes to collect 100,000 signatures or more by March 13, the 82nd anniversary of the announcement of Pluto's discovery as the New Horizons robotic spacecraft gets closer to flyby Pluto and its moons in 2015. 'This is a chance for us all to celebrate what American space exploration can achieve though hard work, technical excellence, the spirit of scientific inquiry, and the uniquely human drive to explore,' reads the petition. Whether or not the New Horizons team is successful in getting the USPS to honor their spacecraft's mission, the probe will have delivered a stamp to Pluto. New Horizons includes nine stowaways including one of the 1991 'Not Yet Explored' Pluto stamps together with other mementos including a Florida quarter, a small container with an ounce of the ashes of Clyde Tombaugh, discoverer of Pluto, and a small segment of 2004 Ansari X Prize winner SpaceShipOne, the first privately-funded crewed spacecraft. 'Why nine mementos? I bet you can guess,' says Dr. Alan Stern, New Horizons' Principal Investigator adding why he wanted to send one of the Pluto stamps on the mission. 'Pluto may not have been explored when that stamp set came out, but we were going to conquer that,' says Stern. 'I wanted to fly it as a sort of 'in your face' thing.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader writes "'Some people remember Sealab as being a classified program, but it was trying not to be,' says Ben Hellwarth, author of the new book Sealab: America's Forgotten Quest to Live and Work on the Ocean Floor, which aims to 'bring some long overdue attention to the marine version of the space program.' In the 1960s, the media largely ignored the efforts of America's aquanauts, who revolutionized deep-sea diving and paved the way for the underwater construction work being done today on offshore oil platforms. It didn't help that the public didn't understand the challenges of saturation diving; in a comical exchange a telephone operator initially refuses to connect a call between President Johnson and Aquanaut Scott Carpenter, (who sounded like a cartoon character, thanks to the helium atmosphere in his pressurized living quarters). But in spite of being remembered as a failure, the final incarnation of Sealab did provide cover for a very successful Cold War spy program."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.